A bomb blast claimed by the Taliban killed eight people near a Shiite Muslim procession in northwest Pakistan yesterday, in the latest attack against the minority during their holy month.
Four boys were among the dead and 30 other people were injured when the remote-controlled bomb packed with ball bearings exploded on the outskirts of Dera Ismail Khan city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said.
The attack on Shiites, a minority in Sunni-dominated Pakistan, came as they marched to mourn Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussain during the holy month of Muharram, which culminates today in Ashura, the group’s holiest day of the year.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
“We carried out the attack against the Shiite community,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. “The government can make whatever security arrangements it wants but it cannot stop our attacks.”
The Taliban had dispatched more than 20 suicide bombers across the country for attacks on the minority community, he said.
The blast followed another suicide attack – also claimed by the Pakistani Taliban – that killed 23 people at a Shiite procession in the garrison city of Rawalpindi Thursday. Authorities subsequently ordered heightened security, with services for mobile phones – which are often used to trigger bombs – suspended in major cities.
But that did not prevent yesterday’s attack. Police said a 10-kilogramme bomb was hidden in a dustbin on the procession route and its powerful blast could be heard several kilometres away.
Seven people, including the four children, died soon after the blast and a man died later yesterday from his wounds in hospital.